


Before I Went Under

by placentalmammal



Series: Valerie [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, Nightmares, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boone contemplates past and present loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before I Went Under

He still has nightmares. Carla has been gone for five long years, but in his dreams, he’s twenty-six again, and Carla’s on her knees a hundred yards away, beautiful and unreachable, alone and afraid. He’s twenty-six, she’s thirty-four and pregnant, he’s looking at her through a scope, and he’s got a shot lined up.

And usually, he takes it. But sometimes, he hesitates. He loses the shot, and then it’s too late. He watches her, too proud to scream as a hundred red-clad men bid for her and carry her away and tear her to pieces.

But sometimes, he fires anyway, and the round hits her in the chest or the stomach instead of in the sweet spot, the junction of skull and spine. And then he watches her as she bleeds out, her cracked lips moving soundlessly over a mouth of blood and broken teeth.

And sometimes, it’s not Carla in his sights.

Sometimes, it’s Waking Cloud.

He always wakes up before she dies. Always. He wakes up on a Yao-Guai pelt, his heart in his throat, and he rolls over and looks at his sleeping wife, just looks at her just to reassure himself that she’s still there. Just to draw strength from her. Just to remind himself that God isn’t all fire, brimstone, and Old Testament fury.

And sometimes, when he’s done looking, he kisses her parted lips or runs his hand over her big belly. It’s her fourth child, his second, and their first together. He’s scared witless, but he loves her, he loves the kids. And he know he'll love this kid, just like he loves Carla and the baby that never was.

So he just looks at Waking Cloud and waits for the images of fractured bone and hellfire to fade, waits for his heart to calm. And then he pulls her into his arms and waits for the dawn, and it always comes. Always.

And he decides that it’s nothing short of a miracle.


End file.
